Right after Ozen's 56-53 win over Lumberton last Friday night, the Lady Panthers head girls basketball coach got ready to head to the airport to go to Birmingham, Ala. Her daughter Bealoved, a freshman sprinter at LSU, ran in her first indoor track meet over the weekend. She also took some stuff with her to give to her son Tony, who is just about two weeks into his first semester at Alabama.

But at that moment on the court after the game, Walker-Brown was still earning her "paycheck," calming down players that seemed to be upset despite the win.

Ozen, who is 9-0 in District 20-4A has met and surpassed most expectations from the public, especially after losing so many key players to graduation.

"I can tell you exactly what my expectations were," Walker-Brown said. "I expect to win no matter what. It's a program and you continue to plug kids in. The biggest part of what we've done this year is motivate kids who may not have been as highly touted as the ones who left last year."

Jerica Bolin, the senior post for Ozen, has come around since early in the season when she and assistant coaches would get into some small confrontations on the bench.

Walker-Brown believes some of that was conditioning, which was not a problem against Lumberton. Although Bolin only scored eight points in the win, she dominated on the offensive glass and had four key fourth quarter points on two put backs.

Bolin also had step out from under the shadow of the 2013 graduates.

"Jerica has been on varsity since she was a freshman," Walker-Brown said. "The crew that graduated last season groomed her. It took her a while to take ownership of this (team) and mature into the leader that she needs to be."

There are five games left in the regular season and Ozen is in the drivers seat for its third straight district title. The Lady Panthers will travel to play crosstown rival Central tomorrow night. Ozen won the first meeting between the two 64-45 on December 17.

For Walker-Brown though, the goal is still to improve.

"Each week, we get better," she said. "Because (we're) young, each week we show a different aspect of our game. They've begun to realize that it's just basketball."